Bare

You may (or more probably, may not...) have noticed that some changes have gone down on my blog during the past few months. Name changed from "Laughing Lioness" to "Bare"...background image changed from what I wanted people to think was whimsical and creative / pretty (see: "Mundane") to a background depicting a 'vintage' camera with some photographs lying under it.

This theme is alot more true to who I am because truth be told, I am not that whimsical picture. Not by a long shot. At best, my mind jumps between thoughts and processes and people and ideas alot. And memories come back to me as randomly as those photographs (yes, the non-digital ones we used to have) after they have fallen out of the box, and were shoved back into the box unsorted. As much as I love the structure of being able to sort my photographs digitally by date / holiday / life events (left-brain), there are few things as exciting to me as holding an actual photograph in my hand, flipping through a stack of (unsorted) photographs uncovered in a cupboard or a box somewhere (right-brain).

Having nearly reached my mid-thirties (already!), I have been fortunate enough to have journeyed to a place where I am embracing more of the truth of who God has made me to be, becoming less apologetic for who I am and the dreams in my heart, and straining forward to have the extended impact that I think I have always wanted to have in the lives of other people.

So in short, I think the blog will definitely be a whole lot more honest than what it has already be, and I will aim to make it a great deal more relaxed, and real Mishy-like. Bared of all pretence and 'fluff'. Some of you that know me well may argue that it has already been that. But I think that there's a part of me that needed to say that. Needed to write that. Needed to see black on white that I have made it to my mid-thirties despite thought that I would not survive stuff (i.e. matric exams, living back in SA after a couple of stints abroad, having had my online-dating heart broken 5yrs ago, etc.).

What you may also notice is that I finally figured out how to enable comments to be added to my blog posts (yes yes...I know). So please, feel free to leave your thoughts on the posts - past, present, future. I would love to hear what you are thinking and if the blog is even relevant at all.

So...I guess all that's left for me to do is wait for some inspiration... ;)

Pathways

Last week I sent out an email to a few friends and family members, about a teaching that I had been listening to. The response was quite cool, and a few people suggested that I blog the email...so here it is.

I don't usually send out emails like this. Actually, I don't send emails like this at all. Today I simply felt however to share this with you.

In his teaching called "Destinations", Andy Stanley discusses at length the 'Principal of the path'. In short, this principle states that it is not our intention but our direction determines our destination. In our emotions, family life, finances, health, studies, etc we can have the best intentions to improve our current state of affairs. But through the choices that we make daily we embark on a path that leads somewhere. It will be quite hard for us to reach Cape Town from Gauteng if we keep going East on the N4... It is also quite okay to stop and ask for directions...contrary to what some may believe - tsk tsk :)

Often times it seems like the 'natural' thing to do - to lean on our own understanding for a given situation. We often tend to source wisdom from our experience, and it becomes so easy to just make decisions off the cuff and almost without thinking about it. I can share with you confidently - from experience - that those are great examples of the occasions where the Lord often gives clear direction when we ask Him about it...however "straightforward" a decision may appear to be. I have also experienced it to be quite refreshing to be able to trust Him for those"smaller" decisions, and not only the "big" ones.

Unless we are intentional with making good decisions daily that lead to the destination we have in mind or on our hearts, and unless we keep the Lord before us in the decisions we make, we are likely to end up at a destination that we did not want to reach at all.

The scripture above is the key scripture in Andy Stanley's teaching, and it has also been one of those scriptures that has come up throughout my life. It has proven to be pivotal in so many of the decisions that I have made, predominantly the ones that I have made in the past two to five years. And time and again the Lord has been faithful in guiding me in the right direction. Even now, as I consider things for next year - in light of finishing my degree - I am doing my best not to just do what I ASSUME to be the right decisions...

As scary as it may be sometimes, know that the Lord is faithful in where He leads and guides you. It is always wise to seek advice and counsel from older people or other leaders around us. But always know that you can count on God to provide for you and to give you everything that you need for whichever direction He leads you to take.

Perhaps He has already led you onto a path that you may not quite know what the outcome is going to be, or where exactly it is that He is leading you. Keep persevering and keep trusting Him for every step of the way.

Hope you all have a great day, and a wonderful week. May you also have time to do something fun every day.

This is by no means something that I have mastered...not by a longshot. Daily I am reminded of the choices that I make and the potential paths which they lead to. In light of that, I have taken the decision to start exercising again, regardless of how strong or weak I assume my ankle joints may be. Perhaps the choices that you need to make today are a bit more daunting than that. Be that as it may, it does not change the sovereignty of God over everything.

Let your intended destination become your actual destination through self-control, self-discipline, and most of all: Trust in the One who gives us the desire for those intended destinations in the first place.